{"id":41047,"date":"2026-02-02T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/?p=41047"},"modified":"2026-02-02T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T08:30:10","slug":"valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentina Ferrari awarded the Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer prize"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"41047\" class=\"elementor elementor-41047\" data-elementor-settings=\"[]\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-section-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"has_ae_slider elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-7b4596a elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default ae-bg-gallery-type-default\" data-id=\"7b4596a\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"has_ae_slider elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-f86617d ae-bg-gallery-type-default\" data-id=\"f86617d\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-7d70d5e elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"7d70d5e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-text-editor elementor-clearfix\"><p>Dr. Valentina Ferrari, a researcher at the <strong>Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB)<\/strong> an Insitute affiliated to Universit\u00e0 della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Bellinzona, has been awarded the annual CHF 100,000 prize by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fondaction.ch\/\"><strong>Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer<\/strong><\/a>, which supports young researchers in cancer studies.<\/p><p>Originally from California and 34 years old, Dr. Ferrari has developed a promising research career in immunotherapy. After working at an American startup specializing in immunology, she completed her PhD at <strong>Humanitas University<\/strong> in Milan, with studies published in <em>Cancer Cell<\/em> on the role of the microbiota in immunotherapy response.<\/p><p>Since 2023, Dr. Ferrari has been part of Prof. <strong>Federica Sallusto<\/strong>\u2019s group at IRB, where she is developing a new approach to immunotherapy for <strong>triple-negative breast cancer<\/strong>, a particularly aggressive form of the disease.<\/p><p><strong>The project<\/strong><\/p><p><br \/>Triple-negative breast cancer is difficult to treat because many cancer cells evade recognition by the immune system, becoming invisible to T cells and resistant to existing immunotherapies. Dr. Ferrari\u2019s project focuses on an alternative immune recognition pathway mediated by the <strong>HLA-E<\/strong> molecule, which cancer cells often retain even when standard immune responses fail.<\/p><p>HLA-E is well-known for its role in viral and bacterial infections but is poorly understood in cancer. In some tumors, higher HLA-E levels are linked to better outcomes, suggesting that T cells capable of recognizing it could help fight cancer. Since HLA-E is highly conserved among humans, this approach could form the basis of immunotherapies applicable to most patients. The project will investigate whether T cells can recognize HLA-E on cancer cells and whether this pathway can be exploited to develop new immunotherapies.<\/p><p>The Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer prize supports young researchers under 40 and promotes cancer research in Switzerland. 100% of donations collected by the organization go directly to research, while administrative costs are covered by private sponsors.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Valentina Ferrari, a researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) an Insitute affiliated to Universit\u00e0 della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Bellinzona, has been awarded the annual CHF 100,000 prize by Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer, which supports young researchers in cancer studies. Originally from California and 34 years old, Dr. Ferrari has developed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":41045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[75],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Valentina Ferrari awarded the Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer prize - IRB USI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"it_IT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Valentina Ferrari awarded the Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer prize - IRB USI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Valentina Ferrari, a researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) an Insitute affiliated to Universit\u00e0 della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Bellinzona, has been awarded the annual CHF 100,000 prize by Fond\u2019Action contre le cancer, which supports young researchers in cancer studies. Originally from California and 34 years old, Dr. Ferrari has developed [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"IRB USI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-02T08:30:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/images\/image001-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Tempo di lettura stimato\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minuti\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/\",\"name\":\"IRB USI\",\"description\":\"Institute for Research in Biomedicine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"it-IT\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"it-IT\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/images\/image001-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":2560},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\",\"name\":\"Valentina Ferrari awarded the Fond\\u2019Action contre le cancer prize - IRB USI\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-02T08:30:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-02T08:30:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/#\/schema\/person\/d1c4b84539a05f2cdc66bff16d59822c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"it-IT\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/\",\"name\":\"Home\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/.\/news-it\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/.\/news-it\/\",\"name\":\"News\"}},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"item\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/news-it\/valentina-ferrari-awarded-the-fondaction-contre-le-cancer-prize\/\",\"name\":\"Valentina Ferrari awarded the Fond\\u2019Action contre le cancer prize\"}}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/#\/schema\/person\/d1c4b84539a05f2cdc66bff16d59822c\",\"name\":\"Elisabetta Genovese\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41062,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41047\/revisions\/41062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irb.usi.ch\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}